[lossman]

Because the last wild caught fish we bought, the blue hamlet, went bad so quickly. On advise from a couple of books and from our lfs (who actually said "It can't hurt and I add copper to all my qt tanks"). The book actually says to add a mild copper solution to the qt tank one day after adding the fish. This helps to prevent any disease outbreaks that might happen. We did not add any copper, nor did we even have any on hand, when we had the blue hamlet in qt. He was just fine the day we put him in, not even hiding. He ate well and seemed quite curious of his surroundings. The next morning, he was hiding a bit more, which we thought was perfectly normal. By that evening, I noticed that he seemed to be breathing a bit hard. I believe that if we had added copper at that time, he would have survived. Instead, we had to go through the agonizing process of watching him slowly die. It was horrible. Anything we can do to help this little guy survive, we are going to do.

Actually, I will be going back through all our books and building a "fish first aid kit" this weekend. I don't ever want to be at the point where some basic first aid supply could save my fish and me not having it on hand.